Posted By Carlo on May 12, 2007

I’m embarrassed. I haven’t blogged in three weeks, and I told you I’d tell you how the South Euclid City Council meeting went. It went fine; Sunny Simon, the councilwoman who invited me there, graciously introduced me, and I spoke for a few minutes. Sunny; her former boyfriend, David Berenson, a friend from ping-pong; and Ed Icove, a lawyer I know from Belvoir, the street where I live, bought my book, Cleveland Rock & Roll Memories. It was a nice evening.
Starting today, May 12, I’m going on another round of signings. I have four CRRM events this week, from Geneva on the Lake to Hudson, and next weekend I have to go Ashland and Mansfield, which is pretty far. So there’s still life in the book, which makes me happy.
I’m writing this May 10 in the Newark Airport, waiting for a flight to Cleveland. I spent Sunday to today in and near Paris. The occasion was a Carlson hotel conference, and the event wasn’t particularly newsy. Paris was, as usual, fabulous: the food, the vistas, the people (mostly), the shopping. The weather was chilly and unpredictable, and getting around was a drag. If you go to France, be very specific in saying where and when you need to go and be, and bring plenty of cash, for two reasons: It’s very expensive there (this week the Euro was worth a third more than the dollar) and very hard to find a money machine. To get to the airport, I had to trade dollars for German Euros two for one with a German guy who luckily had the money. Only then could I get on the bus from the train station to DeGaulle Airport (the bus ride was 16 Euros, or about $21).
I got to the Carlson conference May 6, the day Nicolas Sarkozy was elected president of France, and the day I left, there were still reports of anti-Sarkozy riots in the French press. I saw Sarkozy’s acceptance speech, and it seemed pretty good to me. He’s out to shake up France; if he holds his temper and reins in his authoritarian impulse, he could do something, like change the work ethic, a tall order indeed. For day after an election with an 85-percent turnout (the U.S. should be ashamed), there were riots against Sarkozy. He has much work to do.
That’s enough for now. It’s been a long week.

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